19. Chase
Today had not been among Chase’s top ten best days, but thankfully for his mental outlook, the bottom ten days were pretty much impossible to dethrone.
After waking up at four in the morning to catch their flight, then standing in lines and filling out paperwork for the rest of the day, it didn’t matter that the bed was bedecked with ten pillows and a down comforter. It could have been a World War I military cot and he would have slept like the dead in it.
And that was exactly what he had planned to do, when a knock sounded as he was about to run a shower.
There was only one person it could be at this hour, but he was still surprised to see Zak standing there when he opened the door.
“Hi,” she said.
That one word colored everything differently. In all his years of knowing her, he wasn’t sure she had ever greeted him with “hi.” It was always “What do you need?” or “You’re early,” or “Rough game last week, Payton.” None of which had phased him. But after the verbal battery he’d endured from her today, there was some tender quality to her voice that now stood out in contrast. That made him replay the simple two-letter word in his head as though it was a peace offering.
Chase cleared his throat and turned to the side, bracing himself against the door frame. “Do you want to come in?”
She did, holding her forearms against her stomach as she took in the room.
He sat on the loveseat, facing the sliding glass door to the patio and its picturesque view of Brooklyn. “Did you need something?”
Zak shook her head as she took the cushion next to him. “Unbelievable. After all the shit I’ve said to you today… the first thing you do is ask me if I need anything.”
“Look.” He sighed. Here we go again. “If this is about the car, I didn’t mean it like that. I swear I’m not trying to—”
“No,” she stressed. “I mean you’re unbelievable. Unbelievably generous, and kind, and resilient, and the last thing I want to do is make you feel like you’re not wanted here. Especially to make you feel like I don’t want you here.”
She took his hands in her own and rubbed his knuckles with her thumbs. Though he knew it was only an anxious impulse, her touch traveled in prickles up his arms, to his chest. “I’m so sorry. I saw this amazing opportunity slipping through my fingers, and I took it out on you because I like that you’re here. My time with you has been the only good thing to happen to me this summer, and when I thought the show was over for us, all I could think about was that I wasn’t just losing the shot. I’d be losing you, because you would leave.”
It was like every time she opened her mouth, she hit him with the thing he least expected her to say.
“I didn’t say any of that because I wanted you to take a coaching job.” Her grip tightened. “I said it because I’m terrified that you will when we’re so close. And instead of telling you I appreciate you, and I’ve enjoyed every moment with you, I was a massive bitch instead.”
After things had cooled down, he had already forgiven her. Apology or not, he knew her words earlier had been loaded with anything but the truth. Alcohol and anger. Sadness and stress. And though he wasn’t sure if the wound would have healed the same without her apology, he knew he wasn’t imagining the way everything had changed between them over the past two months. The way he felt closer to her than to anyone.
“You’re not a massive bitch.” He gave her hands a squeeze.
“You don’t mean that. You’re just a great liar, I’ve seen it in action.”
“No lies here. Not with you.”
She was the one person he’d never had to lie to. People always talked about positivity like it was infectious, but so was authenticity. Especially when someone was as true to themselves as she was.
Chase had angled himself toward her without noticing it, but so had she. Her ankle was tucked under her thigh now. The silence was thick with unspoken words. At least, it was for him.
“I’m sorry, too,” he said. “For throwing those words back in your face. For making you feel like I don’t think you can take care of yourself. It’s the opposite. Everything you do comes from a place of ambition, and I respect that about you. Deeply. I see you, Zak. I see fire and passion when I look at you. I don’t see a bitch.”
And I want it. I want you.
“I know. That’s what makes this so hard.”
He waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t. “What do you mean by that?”
The longer she sat there, the stronger the ache in his heart grew. He wanted her in his arms again. Craved it.
His mind was filling in the gaps in her words, projecting the way he felt onto her because it was hard. It was hard for him to be her friend. It was hard to look at her without wondering what would happen if he kissed her. How her lips would feel, how she would respond to his touch, how she would sound.
And he was plagued by guilt for thinking what he shouldn’t, wanting what he shouldn’t, but there was something there. In the middle, on the couch, as she stayed and looked back at him like she was fighting the same feelings in her own mind. Like she wanted to close that space between them.
“I don’t know.” She pulled her hands away and stood. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I’m just rambling because it’s been a long day, and I’m tired, but I couldn’t go to bed without making things right with you.”
“It has.” Chase checked the bedside alarm clock. “And hey, we’re good. Okay?”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah. Try not to miss me when I’m still here, Parker,” he said, trying to keep things light as he stood and hugged her. Maybe a second too long for a friend. But all it did was make her eyes crinkle at the corners like she really would miss him.
“I guess I’d better be getting back to my room.”
Right. The one adjacent to his. 417 and 418.
He wouldn’t have minded if she wanted to stay up all night. If she wanted to talk until the sun rose, or if she wanted to sit next to him on the couch and say nothing at all. Every ounce of exhaustion in his bones had evaporated the moment she walked in. But he smiled and said, “Yeah. See you in the morning.”
“I’d better not wake up to a Porsche in the parking lot,” she teased, backing toward the door.
“Of course not. I’d never get you a Porsche. How would you fit all your guitars in there?”
Even after she was gone, the sound of her laugh lingered.